A Golden businessman sued a Secret Service agent Monday, claiming he was subjected to unlawful seizure, unlawful search and retaliation for exercising his right to free speech.

Steven Howards, 54, was arrested during the summer by Agent Virgil Reichle Jr. after he made comments about the U.S. policy in Iraq to Vice President Dick Cheney in a Beaver Creek shopping mall.

“I was handcuffed and arrested in the presence of my young son for simply telling Mr. Cheney that his policies in Iraq are reprehensible,” said Howards, an environmental consultant and former director of the Regional Air Quality Council in 1986-1991.

Reichle refused to comment and referred all media inquiries to his boss, Agent-in-Charge Lon Garner, who failed to return phone calls.

While walking his 11-year-old son to a piano lesson, Howards saw Cheney shaking hands and posing for photos. He walked over and told Cheney, “I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.”

Howards said he walked on, not wanting to cause a disturbance with so many Secret Service agents around.

About 10 minutes later, Howards and his 8-year-old son were walking back through the square when Reichle allegedly walked up to Howards and asked him whether he had assaulted the vice president.

“He came out of the shadows,” Howards said. “He didn’t accuse me but asked me if I had assaulted Cheney. I said no, he grabbed me and handcuffed me behind my back in front of my son. As he led me away, I told him I can’t abandon my son. He said he’d call social services.”

Howards said Reichle told him he was being charged with the felony crime of assaulting the vice president. An Eagle County sheriff’s deputy drove him to jail, where Howards’ wife bonded him out three hours later.

Howards eventually was charged with harassment, a misdemeanor crime, which Eagle County District Attorney Mark Hurlbert dropped on July 6.

“We filed a motion to dismiss the charge because we didn’t think we could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt because we had gotten word that the vice president did not wish to prosecute Howards,” Hurlbert said Monday. “Originally, he was going to be charged with assault because the information we got from Secret Service was that he had pushed the vice president. We learned later that it had been only verbal.”

U.S. attorney spokesman Jeff Dorschner said that if Reichle was acting within the scope of his employment, he will be given the choice of hiring a private attorney to defend him at taxpayers’ expense or to use an assistant U.S. attorney to represent him.

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